Thursday, March 08 2018, Karachi: Karachi School of Business & Leadership (KSBL) MBA students took the Winners Trophy once again at the 10th CFA Research Challenge 2017-18 organized by the CFA Society Pakistan. The local finale, with five shortlisted teams, took place at a hotel this Thursday.

A total of 17 universities from across the country participated in this rigorous research challenge and five were selected to present at the finale after selection of their original reports. This included teams from: IBA, IoBM, KSBL, LSE and NUST Business Schools. The competition had financial modelling and valuation exercises, with points awarded for an initial report submission and presentation at the finale.

All teams were to complete Equity Market Research Analytics’ work for a particular company and finally come up with an Investment Call: Buy/Sell Shares, based on their findings.

For the first time in recent local history of this competition, a team made the bold move to call for a ‘sell’ of shares’. The KSBL team thus had the winning presentation, with the Chief Guest from Pakistan Stock Exchange (CEO PSX, Mr. Richard Morin) remarking on the resolute work done by the team and the quality of their pitch. The winning team was selected by a jury of six notable individuals, all chartered members of the CFA Research Society.
KSBL emerged as the defending champions, this being their second consecutive win at the CFA Institute Research Challenge, earlier taking the Winners Trophy in 2017 as well as 2014. This year the runner-up teams were IBA and NUST. KSBL will proceeds to the Asia-Pacific Regional Finals in Malaysia, to be held mid-April. The CFA Society also introduced a new award this year for ‘Best Presenter’, which was also taken by KSBL – making it the ultimate winner of this year’s prestigious challenge!

The KSBL Team was represented by both senior & junior-year MBA students: Abdullah Bin Zia, Aman Khan, Basit Naeem, M. Daniyal Aleem and Mushk Aijaz with their esteemed mentor Ms. Sana Abdullah (Alfalah Investments) who has led them to victory for the second time in a row.

The Karachi School of Business & Leadership (KSBL) is a prominent graduate business school located in Karachi, Pakistan. To learn more about KSBL, you may reach out to Sana Jawwad, Manager External Relations at: sana.jawwad@ksbl.edu.pk